Govt to draft first ever policy to regulate antibiotics use

“When anti-microbial resistance,also known as drug resistance,occurs,it renders these drugs ineffective,” explained GMCH Head of the Department of Microbiology Dr Jagdish Chander.

In fact,the government is working towards drafting a first ever policy regulating the use of antibiotics.

In February,a formal proposal to create an antibiotic policy was submitted to the Union Health Ministry.

For the first time a high-level panel of experts,including Drug Controller General of India Dr Surinder Singh,Additional Director General of Health Services Dr H Jani and Health Ministry Joint Secretary Arun Panda,made a formal presentation on the draft antibiotic policy to Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Under the draft policy,several drugs would now be sold only against prescription while many others would be available only for hospital use and not in pharmacies. The policy calls for the creation of a new schedule under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act called Schedule HX,which will be mentioned on the label of the drug itself as a direction to consumers and physicians.

Schedule H will denote those drugs which would be given only on prescription and Schedule X those drugs which would have to be kept under lock and key in hospitals.

A Schedule HX drug would come with the label warning saying “Dangerous to take this preparation except in accordance with medical advice; not to be sold on retail without prescription of a registered medical practitioner”.

“Under the policy,there are certain third generation antibiotics which would be dispensed only from tertiary care hospitals. So they would go from manufacturers directly to the hospitals which,in turn,would need a licence to keep them. These are drugs meant for life-threatening infections or the terminal mode of treatment.

The policy would also entail a prescription audit whereby the doctors would have to give two copies of prescriptions to every patient. One copy would have to be kept for two years by the chemist while the other one would be audited by the DCGI,” said Dr Chander.

In the light of these developments,the GMCH Department of Microbiology is conducting an awareness programme focusing on drug resistance.

On the basis of the deliberations of the GMCH Hospital Infection Control Committee,the Department of Microbiology is organising a symposium tomorrow on Antibiotics Stewardship: Need of the Hour in collaboration with the World Health Organisation.